


Remedy

by thedevilchicken



Category: Blitz (2011)
Genre: Anal Sex, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Drinking, First Time, Future Fic, Getting Together, Handcuffs, Humiliation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Rimming, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 14:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10664889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Sometimes, the remedy is almost worse than the disease.





	Remedy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



"Son of a motherfucking whore," Brant says, pulling against the handcuffs Nash has just clicked into place around his wrists. 

"You do realise you asked me to cuffs you, right?" Nash says. "And watch your motherfucking language." 

Brant mutters something disparaging about how Nash is highly unlikely to be fucking anyone's mother, bloody shirt-lifter, and he didn't think he'd actually go through with it; perhaps, ordinarily, Nash would let that pass by, either pretend he didn't hear because that really annoys Brant and sometimes he enjoys that even at the best of times, or give him a withering look of _really, are you twelve years old?_ because that amuses the piss out of Brant and sometimes Nash enjoys that, too. But this time he slaps Brant straight across the face. Brant looks scandalised then completely flummoxed, which is fucking hilarious from where Nash is standing. 

"What did you do that for?" Brant says.

"Because I'd like you to shut that poisonous fucking mouth of yours for once," he replies. "Do you think you can manage that? Bearing in mind I'm going to leave you like that till morning if you don't and send someone to find you."

Brant scowls. "You wouldn't dare," he says. Nash crosses his arms over his bare chest. He raises his brows significantly and Brant's scowl turns into a frustrated frown. "Yeah, whatever. I didn't think you were going to be such a fucking bossy boots about it. Jesus fucking Christ."

Nash shrugs his shoulders. "Well, you're not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes, now are you," he says. "Though I suppose you're some sort of tool, at least." He sits down on the side of the bed and gives Brant's ridiculous erection a squeeze to make his point. Brant scowls again. More than once, Nash has told him the wind'll change and he'll get stuck like that, and sometimes he thinks it's already happened. 

"So what, you're saying I'm only good for my dick?" Brant says. 

"Are you honestly going to try to tell me you've got other good points?" Nash asks, because he's fucking irritated and Brant tends to bring that out in him, but perhaps especially today. "If you weren't a copper, you'd've been banged up for GBH twenty years ago." 

"So it's my dick then, yeah?"

Nash nods. "Yeah, he says. "I'm afraid so." 

Brant huffs. Nash leans over and runs one fingertip up Brant's erection, slowly, thoughtfully, right from balls to tip. He leans lower and licks the head of it, just once. 

"Look, if it's any consolation, it's an excellent dick," he says. "Not too big, not too wide..."

"You sound like fucking Goldilocks."

Nash reaches up and rubs Brant's prickly head as condescendingly as he could. "I'm not fucking any fucking locks," he says, then returns to his train of thought. "It's not too big, not too wide, nice and stiff when you can actually get it up..."

"Look, I told you, that's only when I'm drunk."

"You're drunk a lot." He wraps his fingers around Brant's cock and strokes slowly. "I suppose if you're going to spend a third of your life pissing about at the gym and a third of your life roughing people up in the name of police work, you might as well spend the other third putting that physique to good use." 

"So now it's my physique and not just my dick?"

Nash raises his brows. "You know, as much as you might think it is, your dick isn't magic," Nash says. "It does generally need some sort of guidance."

"So I'm a guidance system for a dick."

Nash nodded. "I think that sums it up," he says, and leans over, and sucks for a second just under the head of Brant's erection. "But you're a _good_ guidance system for a _good_ dick." He gave it a quick squeeze. "I'd kick you out instead of letting you in if you weren't."

The look on Brant's face isn't exactly an impressed one, but apparently it's having the opposite effect on the dick in question. It's hot and heavy and hard in Nash's hand and he sucks at it again, taking the head into his mouth this time and teasing the slit in the tip with the tip of his tongue. Then he pulls back again. 

"Are you saying you don't enjoy having sex with me?" he asks. 

"I could live without," Brant replies. 

"That's a shame," Nash says, with a sad shake of his head. "Let's face it, it's about all you're good for, considering." 

Brant scowls again. The problem is, the way Brant is, sometimes it's like he half believes that shite. The problem is, even when he does, especially when he does, he gets off on being told it's true. Nash figured that out months ago, when he got the OK to stay on at the station after the whole Blitz fuck-up and Brant was assigned to work under him on a more permanent basis. 

The other lads in the station think it's a laugh a bloody minute to try to get Brant mixed up in all their homophobic bullshit, but he hasn't played along - maybe Nash has never actually thanked him but he did once upon a time feel a vague sense of gratitude for that. He did decided he'd continue to give Brant the same sort of leeway he'd had before and hope he didn't end up getting himself into trouble with it. But he watched Brant grimacing at the pissy graffiti that must've taken some homophobic arsehole all of about twelve seconds to scrawl on the wall in the gents', wincing as he pulled the stick figure porno off Nash's locker door and shoved it in the overflowing bin, and something started to make sense. 

Still, he couldn't've said he really got it till he stepped out of the local gay bar for a smoke one Friday night and saw Brant in the back alley, no pun intended. He was giving what might've been the worst, most drunken blowjob Nash had ever had the misfortune to witness and while he probably should've looked away, it was such a bloody train wreck to see that he absolutely couldn't. He let his cigarette burn down to ash in his hand, fucking staring like a pervert. 

And when the other party was done, half choking Brant with his cock, Brant spat on the pavement and called the guy a faggot and got a backhand across the face in response. Honestly, Nash couldn't say he blamed the guy, because Brant was an abrasive cunt at the best of times, but he couldn't let the drunk bar fight happen even if it looked a lot like Brant could barely stand of his own volition. So he waved the guy off with a flash of his warrant card and got Brant into a taxi. He got in next to him, hoping the fuckwit wouldn't projectile vomit cheap cider all over his good shoes. 

He supposed he could have taken Brant back to Brant's place but, in a stunning display of what he can only assume was truly excellent judgement, what he did was take him back to his. When they got there, and he somehow manhandled the big lug into his flat, he meant to leave him on a chair in the living room, he'd've sworn to God, but the next thing he knew he was dragging his drunk arse upstairs, trying not to retch at the smell of booze like Brant had bathed in the stuff kids like to chug in the car park behind the shops when they think no one's looking. Brant was a bit too far north of his teenage years to get away with that kind of idiocy and not just look kind of sad, even if Nash had to admit they'd got away with worse. 

He dumped Brant on the bed. He unlaced his shoes and unbuckled his belt and felt like the same perv in a dark alley he had earlier as he stripped Brant out of his stinking clothes and left him in his underwear. The thing was, the part that actually stuck with Nash as he got into bed next to the idiot and turned off the light wasn't that he'd got Brant in bed next to him. It wasn't what he'd seen at the bar or the fact that all his casual homophobia while he disapproved of everyone else's suddenly made quite a lot of sense. It was the fact that Brant had managed to score wearing a cardigan that smelled like the illegitimate offspring of a teenage drinking party and a dodgy kebab and Nash hadn't struck it lucky in months. 

In the morning, he woke to the sound of Brant retching in the bathroom. He made him a strong coffee and a bacon sandwich, then thought twice and made some for himself, too. 

"So, what am I doing here?" Brant asked with his mouth full three minutes later, halfway through his sandwich in his boxer shorts and one of Nash's t-shirts that didn't quite fit. 

Nash sipped his coffee, wondering how on earth he was meant to explain. "I take it you don't remember?" he asked. 

"Not a bit." 

"That's probably for the best."

Brant frowned. Nash eyed him over his coffee. He could have sworn he actually saw the wrong idea forming in Brant's head and there was probably a moment when he could've jumped in and stopped it, but he was in the middle of his sandwich so for some reason it didn't feel like an immediate priority. He let the idea form. 

"Oh, fuck," Brant said. "We didn't, did we?" 

"No, we didn't," Nash replied. 

"You're sure?" 

Nash raised his brows. "I think I'd remember," he said. "And I think I've got better taste."

"So, you're sure."

Nash finished his coffee in another two slow mouthfuls, not at all trying to make Brant suffer. 

"Yes, I'm sure," he said. "It wasn't me you were sucking off next to the bins behind a bar, I'm just the idiot that stopped you getting into a fight afterwards."

Brant groaned. Nash ignored him, but that night he got a phone call from the staff at the bar. He threw on some clothes and drove over, and there Brant was passed out in the back room. 

"The only reason we didn't call the police is he said he _was_ the police," the barman said, and Nash nodded and showed them his warrant card. 

"It won't happen again," he said, though he was half sure it would, and he manhandled Brant into the passenger side of his car and strapped him upright with the seatbelt. Then he took Brant back to his place again, and he stripped him again, and he put him into bed. Again. 

"This is like pissing déjà vu," Brant said in the morning, still next to him in bed this time. "What did I do now?"

Nash sighed. "Let's just say if you don't want the lads at the station to think you're gay, you need to stop blowing gay men behind gay bars," he said. Brant winced. Nash told himself very effectively that he didn't give a flying fuck. He had enough problems of his own to deal with without taking on Brant's idiot sword of Damocles, too. 

Of course, Brant did it again the next night. So Brant took him home and in the morning when Brant asked him, he said yes. Sort of. Technically not. But enough was e-fucking-nough. 

"You don't remember?" Nash said. 

"Nothing after the eighth cider," Brant replied. 

"That's a shame," Nash said. "I thought you would this time."

Brant frowned at him over his second coffee of the morning. "Why this time?" he asked. "Why not last time or the time before?" Nash raised his brows and let Brant form the thought for himself with a resounding, "Oh, fuck." He dropped his head into his hands and Nash didn't bother to correct him. 

"Don't go to the bar tonight," Nash said, instead. "Come here. If you start another fight, I'm going to let you sleep it off in the cells and then everyone'll know about you." 

Brant looked grim and for once he didn't answer back. Nash, on reflection, should've known that could mean nothing good. 

He didn't really expect him to turn up that night; he expected another pre-dawn wake-up call from Brian the barman letting him know Brant had been getting tetchy with guys looking to score followed by an inconvenient drive and a cardio workout he could've lived without as he dragged a semi-conscious DS Tom Brant up to his flat. As it was, he was getting read to go to bed with a whiskey and a case file when Brant knocked on the door. He left the whiskey and the file on the kitchen counter and he opened the door. 

"I didn't think you'd come," he said. 

"You said come so I came," Brant replied. "You going to invite me in?" Bash stood aside and let him in. Brant made a beeline for the kitchen counter and downed Nash's whiskey in one. 

Nash had to admit he wasn't sure exactly what it was he'd been expecting to happen next, probably because he very much hadn't counted on Brant actually listening to him, let alone turning up. All he could think was the threat of discovery outweighed his bizarre attempt to self-destruct, or else the bouncers at the bar had finally recognised him on his way in and thrown his argumentative arse back out again. So he poured them both another drink and they sat down on the sofa, side by side. And when Brant kissed him, Nash spilled whiskey all over his t-shirt. Brant smelled like he'd already done the same to himself sometime earlier. 

"What exactly was that for?" Nash asked. 

"Isn't that why I'm here?" Brant replied. 

Nash frowned. "Do you think I asked you here for sex?" 

"Didn't you?"

"No!"

Brant clenched his jaw. He clenched one fist and Nash was quite concerned for the glass in the other but it didn't break, thank God for small mercies. He took it out of Brant's hand and he put it down on the coffee table then changed his mind and drank it himself. 

He should've sent Brant home, except chances were the daft sod would just have wandered the fuck off and got himself into trouble again so the choices were: let Brant self-destruct or, possibly, probably, end up making him twice as bad but take longer about it. He went with the latter, mostly based on how it would give Brant more time to try to sort himself out if he wanted to, at least. Definitely not because of the image he had in his head of Brant on his knees in an alley with some stranger's cock in his mouth. He supposed at least this would be more discreet, if nothing else, so he didn't send Brant home. 

"Get down on your knees," Nash said. 

Brant looked at him for a second like one or both of them had just started speaking ancient Greek; Nash wasn't sure if he was confused by his abrupt about-face on the matter at hand or if he was so drunk he genuinely took a minute to process language or what it was, but then Brant went down on his knees on the floor. It wasn't even close to an elegant motion. He nearly fell flat on his face along the way, like that would've been a first for him. But then he settled down on his knees on the floor in front of Nash, sitting on his heels. He looked up at Nash, almost wincing, like he'd rather have been anywhere else on the planet and Nash suspected that was probably the truth, except for the part where it really, really wasn't. He knew Brant's type, the ones that were all hyper-masculine front because they were so bloody terrified someone might find out they were strictly speaking less than 100% heterosexual, probably because they'd have to admit it to themselves then, too. Brant clearly didn't want to admit it, but then again it didn't look like he wanted to deny it enough to walk away. 

"Unbuckle your belt," Nash said, so Brant did it. 

"Pull your jeans down," Nash said, and Brant did, though his cheeks and his neck and maybe part of his chest under his shirt all blushed like a beetroot when he did it. 

"Touch yourself," he said, and Brant frowned at him as if he might say no though honestly, if he'd been going to say no it would have probably been before he had his jeans round his knees and his cock wafting about in the air like a fucking flagpole on the parade grounds. Brant wrapped one hand around himself and stroked awkwardly. 

"You're just going to watch?" Brant said. 

Nash nodded faintly. "That's the general idea," he said. 

"You know that's kind of gay, right?"

"Really?" Nash said, and raised his brows. "You don't say." He sat back against the back of she sofa and spread his arms out, resting them along the top edge of the cushions. "Would you say you're gay, Brant?"

Brant scowled that bloody scowl again. "No," he replied, strangely vehement about it for a copper with his cock out on his DI's living room floor. 

"Bi, then."

"No."

"So what, you just like masturbating for the entertainment of gay men?" Brant didn't respond. He just kept on scowling and kept on stroking. "Tell me something. Do you want to suck my cock?" Brant clenched his jaw. "I'll take that as a yes, then."

"I didn't say that." 

"So then why are you here?"

Brant rubbed his eyes with his free hand, his forehead, his prickly scalp. He hung his head. His other hand went still. 

"I didn't tell you to stop," Nash said, and Brant looked up at him, and for a second he wondered if he was going to get up and pull up his jeans and walk (stagger) out of the door the way he'd come. For a second, he looked angry. Then, for a second, he looked conflicted. Then, he stroked himself again. 

"Why are you here, Brant?" Nash asked. 

"You told me to come." 

"Yes, because you always do everything I tell you to do." He stretched out one leg and nudged one of Brant's knees with one socked foot. "Why are you here? What do you want?" Brant frowned. His hand slowed then went still again. "Don't stop," Nash said, and Brant groaned and started again, his hand shifting up and down his shaft, pinching the foreskin over the head, again and again. "Tell me why you're here."

Brant groaned again and he fucking scowled again and he stroked himself and his hips twitched forward, again and again. He glared at Nash. He took a breath through his bared teeth and said, "I want to suck your cock.." And he came all over the laminate flooring with a strangled sound and a kick of his hips that actually, in his drunken state, managed to knock him down onto all fours. It was oddly impressive to watch, Nash thought. Borderline obscene, but impressive. 

"Satisfied now, you fucking pervert?" Brant said, hanging his head as he pushed himself back up onto his heels. 

"Yes, thanks," Nash replied. He stood. He ran one hand over the stubbly crown of Brant's head, though Brant tried half-heartedly to shake him off, then he walked away. He threw him a box of tissues that hit him in the arm then hit the floor. "Clean that up and I'll get you a drink," he said, and Brant did, still frowning, once he'd managed to pull up his jeans and tuck himself back in without collapsing through the glass coffee table and Nash went to the kitchen counter and he shook like a fucking leaf as he poured two large whiskeys and tried not to watch Brant clean his come off the floor because fuck, _fuck_ , he'd never meant it to go that far. He wasn't sure he'd meant anything to happen except he wasn't sure how he'd expected things to go since he'd basically offered his flat like an alternative to drunk blowjobs behind desperately seedy bars. And God, oh God, he hadn't meant to get frustratingly hard in a pair of ancient jogging bottoms watching Brant fondle himself drunkenly. 

He knocked back his drink because apparently he needed it and poured another before he went back over to the sofa. Brant was already sitting on it, leaning forward with his head in his hands. Nash handed him a glass; they both drank; Nash was glad he'd brought the bottle over with him. 

By the time they stumbled upstairs to Nash's bed, they were both well and truly smashed. It really seemed like that was for the best. In the morning, the hangover seemed completed deserved. 

Brant came over that night, too. Surprise surprise, he was drunk off his tits, and when Nash sat back down on the sofa once he'd opened the door and let him in, Brant went down on his knees in front of him and started to unzip his fly. When he got his cock out and started to stroke, Nash had to wonder if he'd created a monster. If he had, it'd been the oddest accident he'd ever had in his life. 

He did the same the next night and the night after that and in the morning, every morning, Nash made coffee that Brant put so much sugar into that it left sludge at the bottom of the cup when he'd finished and they acted like nothing untoward had happened. Nash supposed at least it meant Brant hadn't been sailing close to the wind behind any bars, but that wasn't exactly much of a consolation for all the wet towels on his bathroom floor when Brant showered in the morning or Brant stealing his t-shirts even though they were tight across his chest or that look on Brant's face somewhere between complete fucking ecstasy and bloody self-loathing every time he came with his cock in his hand and Nash's eyes on him. Nash can understand living in the closet in their line of work because God knows being out hasn't been easy for him, but Brant couldn't even admit it to himself half the time. 

"Look, not that I don't appreciate the view," Nash said, on the sixth night, "but really, what are you doing here?" 

Brant frowned at him. He'd barely even had chance to unzip his jeans so he sat there on his knees, dick hanging out, frowning. 

"You want me to fuck off?" he asked. 

"Do you?" Nash replied.

Brant squeezed so hard at his own thighs as he thought that over that his fingers went white. 

"No," he said, though his expression said he'd only admitted it grudgingly. 

"So, tell me what you're doing here." Nash sat back, brows raised, knees crossed, hands folded on his lap like it was some kind of bizarre job interview. "I'll wait." 

Brant grimaced. "I don't know," he said. "I don't fucking know, okay?"

"I think you do."

"So you're bloody psychic now? You can read my mind?"

"I think I can, more or less."

"Astound me."

Nash moved. It was probably one of the more blindingly stupid ideas that he'd ever had but he shuffled forward onto the edge of the sofa and he leaned down, closer, elbows on his knees. Brant's face was flushed red, probably part anger and part the booze and maybe part desire though chances were Brant wouldn't've called it that. He looked him in his dark, drunk eyes. 

"You're pissed off at yourself that you want to sleep with men," he said. "You think it's probably okay as long as whoever you do it with thinks you're as big a fuck-up as you do yourself. You think it's probably okay to do it with me because I _know_ you're a fuck-up. And you'll keep embarrassing yourself by coming on my floor because you think you deserve it." He reached forward and chucked Brant underneath the chin; Brant grimaced again and jerked away. "And you probably think it's okay for me because I am who I am but you couldn't be gay, not you, big tough man beating up villains." He stood. "But you know what? I'm not the one on my knees." 

As Brant stared up at him, he pushed his joggers down over his hips and let his cock spring loose. He gave it a couple of strokes right in front of Brant's face. 

"Go on," he said. "Prove what a man you are by sucking my cock." 

He half expected Brant to balk, but he didn't. He stared at him like he'd completely lost the plot for a second but then he licked his lips and Nash raised his brows and the next thing he knew, his cock was in Brant's mouth. And he wasn't good at it, not even close, he had all the finesse of a fucking vacuum cleaner, but nash groaned and ran his hands over Brant's scalp and Brant's hands went to his hips and fuck, Brant let him hold him there as he bucked his hips and fucked his face and when he came, in Brant's mouth, Brant gave him a look like he might actually vomit as he swallowed. The thing was, as fucking appalled as Brant looked, he was still just as hard as he'd ever been. And when Nash sat back down rather unsteadily on the sofa, his trousers still around his knees, Brant was watching him. 

"You enjoyed that," Nash said, very much not a question. Brant winced, and he didn't deny it. "Go on, touch yourself. Show me how much you liked it." So Brant did exactly that. He wrapped his fist around his cock and he stroked hard and fast and he came on the floor while Nash watched him. Then he cleaned up, and they tucked themselves back in, and they had another drink together. It really seemed like the thing to do. 

The next night, when Brant inevitably arrived, he went back down on his knees on the living room floor. Nash shook his head. 

"Not like that," he said. "Take your clothes off first." And they'd come so far that he didn't even question that Brant was going to do it, even when he looked at Nash like it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do; he did it, though, stood back up and hopped about like a drunk bloody Irish dancer taking off his shoes and socks, then his stupid cardigan, his borrowed t-shirt, his jeans. And fuck, Brant was something without his clothes on, he really was, all the muscle and the splashes of dark hair and the jut of his dick, but he stood there awkwardly, crossing his arms over his chest like that was what it took to keep him from trying to cover himself up with both hands. Nash just watched him, the pained, almost self-conscious look on his face, how he shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other. 

"Look, what do you want me to do?" Brant said, finally. 

"What do you want to do?" Nash replied. 

"Can we not start that twenty questions shite again?" 

"Don't get tetchy," Nash said. "I'm serious. What do you want?"

Brant clenched his jaw. He squeezed his lips together thinly. "I want to suck your cock," he said. 

"Then I'd better teach you how," Nash replied. 

Brant tried to protest that he knew how to suck a dick and so Nash asked him how many dicks he'd sucked. Brant huffed and squeezed his arms over his chest and told him _eight_. Nash asked if he'd sucked the same one more than once. Brant clenched his jaw and told him _no_. 

"Trust me," Nash said. "From what I've seen, you'll benefit from some instruction."

Brant shrugged. Nash waved him down onto his knees. And once he'd slid his tracksuit bottoms down round his knees, they began. 

It took a couple of nights of _less suction_ , _more tongue_ , _Jesus Christ don't do that with your teeth_. It took a couple more of _use your hands_ , _yes I really mean you should put your fingers there_ , _for fuck's sake at least try to look like you're enjoying it_. The fifth night, Nash told him what to do and he did it, all of it, his tongue on him, his mouth and his hands on him, palms pressing Nash's hips to the sofa to keep him still. He came in his mouth and Brant took a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle before he got himself off there naked on the floor, his eyes on Nash. 

And after, once Brant was dressed again and the living room floor was relatively clean, they sat side by side on the sofa and Brant said, "So, what's next?" He looked like it was a toss-up between asking the question and throwing himself off the top of the nearest housing estate, and the question had just about won. 

Nash chuckled, halfway between amused and exasperated as he poured himself another drink.

"I'll think of something," he said. 

He did think. He thought about it that night in bed. He thought about it in the shower in the morning, willing his erection away because he wasn't thinking about Brant while he got himself off. He thought about it over a semi-silent breakfast with Brant downstairs, trying not to look at him too closely because daytime Brant and nighttime Brant weren't exactly the same thing because drunk Brant and sober, hungover Brant weren't exactly the same thing, either. In the day, they went to work and there wasn't even a hint of what they did at night, not that Nash had exactly been expecting handjobs in the cells or Brant's mouth on him in the incident room. 

He thought about that question at work that day, though, somewhere in between the piles of paperwork and interviewing a suspected armed robber and the computer that was on the blink again. They arrested two rather sad-looking smackheads for sticking up a post office and Nash was still thinking about it when he went home at the end of what felt like an extremely long day. He'd already pushed Brant further than he'd ever intended to, further than he'd actually have said Brant could cope with back in the start, and he hadn't legged it screaming. Nash honestly wasn't sure if he wanted to back off or push him again just to see what might happen. After all, it's not like Brant's the only one of them that's a little bit fucked in the head sometimes. Nash at least knows himself well enough to understand that. 

Brant turned up right on his usual schedule, pissed as a newt around 11pm. Nash let him in and Brant was already toeing off his shoes and pulling off his jacket at the same time, so totally lacking in anything approaching coordination that it looked suspiciously like he might trip himself up at any second, when Nash closed the door and slipped on the security chain. 

"So, where do you want me?" Brant asked, naked, somehow full of bravado for once as he downed a glass of whiskey Nash had left for him on the counter. Nash gave an amused sort of chuff. Brant was hard to read sometimes; Brant could cycle from depressed alcoholic to violent copper to self-loathing proto-queer to cocky arsehole so fast it made no discernible sense. 

"Upstairs," he said, though that was maybe a step too far in and of itself, because it wasn't as if they'd ever done anything in Nash's bedroom except doze off while shitfaced and snore like the engine on a HGV, or it could've been if Brant hadn't just shrugged then picked up his glass in one hand and the bottle in the other and fucking drunkenly sashayed his way up the stairs. Nash followed. He supposed at least he couldn't say being around Brant didn't keep him on his toes. 

Brant was sitting on the end of the bed swigging straight from the bottle when Nash joined him, and Brant's cocky smile disappeared post haste as Nash pulled his t-shirt off over his head, pushed off his jogging bottoms and stood there just as naked as Brant was, his hands on his hips. 

"Christ, you're a skinny fucker," Brant said, eyeing him while he tried not to look like he was eyeing him. 

Nash took the bottle, drank, then set it down on top of a nearby chest of drawers. "If you're going to insult me, Brant, you can piss off right now," he said, trying very hard to act like it hadn't been about eighteen months since he'd actually been naked in anyone else's presence. That was a lot easier said than done, considering what he had in mind - he knelt on the bed, facing the headboard and away from Brant, and went down on his hands and knees. 

That night, he told Brant to part his cheeks. He did. He told him to lick him. Surprisingly, he did that, too. He told him how to do it, when to tease him with the tip of his tongue, when to lick him with the flat of it, when to give his jaw a rest and rub him with the pad of his thumb instead before starting again. He'd really believed Brant would say no and they'd go back to the relative safety of blowjobs in the living room and this _what's next?_ nonsense could die back down but when Nash came, he came with Brant still tonguing his arsehole enthusiastically, hot and wet and driving him completely mad. 

"I can't fucking believe you made me do that," Brant said, after, making a big show of pouring himself a big glass of whiskey and swilling it around his mouth. 

"Bear in mind you're the one that actually did it," Nash pointed out in response. "You could have said no. You didn't." And Brant looked so oddly conflicted by that notion that Nash was half convinced he'd call him a poof or something equally bloody mature and disappear out the door but he didn't. From the look on his face, he thought he deserved anything Nash might've said next, but Nash just stretched out on his back and pulled up the duvet then turned off the light. 

"Tomorrow, I'm going to tell you to fuck me," he said, in the dark. "If you prefer to keep telling yourself you don't have sex with men, don't bother knocking at the door."

Brant knocked at the door. He looked worryingly sober, so Nash poured him a whiskey and they sat down on the sofa and Brant didn't quite meet his gaze as he swished the drink around the glass almost haphazardly enough that it spilled all over his jeans and Nash's sofa and only narrowly escaped doing so.

"Right, so, I have sex with men," Brant said, leaning forward, forearms to knees. He ran one hand over his head with a faint rasp of stubble against his palm, and Nash sighed. It was like the big idiot was confessing something, like he'd magnificently got the wrong end of the stick and decided Nash was his priest or else his bloody dad or his best childhood friend and that wasn't the point at all. 

"Believe it or not, I already knew that," Nash replied. "Considering what you know about me, what makes you think I'm going to judge you for that?"

Brant shot him a disgruntled sideways glance then flopped back heavily and rested his head against the back of the sofa. 

"I thought you wanted me to admit it," he said. 

"I'm just sick to death of you acting like I'm forcing you to do things you don't want to do," Nash replied. He lit a cigarette, puffed, inhaled, frowned for a second then offered it to Brant. Brant took it, half-reluctant like he thought he might actually be able to catch gay from it, then inhaled slowly. He looked at it in his hand, glanced at Nash and then passed it back. 

"You're not forcing me to be here," Brant said. 

"I know."

"So why the fuck am I here?"

"Why don't you tell me?"

"No, fuck's sake. I mean why'd you tell me to come here in the first place?"

Nash raised his brows, taken sort of off-guard. "Well, you were blowing strangers in an alley," he pointed out. 

"So what, you thought I'd be better off here than on my knees in a puddle of pissy beer?"

"Something like that." 

"So you're doing me a favour, letting me suck your cock?"

Nash looked at him. He stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette though Brant looked vaguely pained at the waste and he turned to look at him. 

"Yes," he said. "I'm doing you a favour."

"Some fucking favour." 

"Tell me you don't want it."

"I don't."

"You're a fucking liar."

"And you're a fucking queer."

"Bravo, something we agree on." 

Brant huffed. He put his glass down on the table. He dropped his head into his hands. 

"You said you were going to get me to fuck you if I came here tonight," he said. 

"Do you want to?"

Brant looked at him, again, sideways. "Yeah," he said, looking a lot like he'd just admitted to kicking puppies in his spare time and not to wanting sex. 

He thought about kicking him out, and maybe it would've been for the best, but then he thought about what the stupid, repressed bastard looked like naked and decided fuck it, he'd already come this far, everything was already more or less irredeemably fucked up, so why not? It'd all been completely fucked since he'd decided to try to help, like watching Brant wanking in the living room had ever been likely to help. Or maybe it'd been fucked since before that, when Nash saw him on his knees, or before that, when he'd officially transferred, or before _that_ , considering some of the shitty things they'd done together. 

"Go upstairs and get undressed," Nash said. So Brant did exactly that. 

Brant was naked and sitting on the end of the bed when Nash joined him, and he looked away when Nash started to undress. 

"Watch me," Nash said, not particularly because he likes being watched but because it really looked like Brant needed to. Brant clenched his jaw and watched as Nash pulled off his shirt , socks, jeans, stood there naked and half-hard and irritable because that was basically what being around Brant did to him on a daily basis. Then Nash knelt on the bed. He rummaged in the drawer next to it and tossed a tube of lube at Brant who scrambled to catch it, then he went down on all fours just like he had the night before. 

"You're not so fucking dim that you don't understand the concept, right?" Nash said, as he bent down lower, knees spread out wide, his head on his forearms on the mattress. Maybe he should've felt exposed, because he supposed he was, but he just felt turned on and aggravated. 

"Yeah, I understand the concept," Brant replied. 

"So do it."

Brant did it. He rubbed lube between Nash's cheeks like he hated himself for touching him at all, let alone there, but like he couldn't help it. He rubbed lube onto his cock and pressed the slick head of it up to Nash's hole. Nash thought about telling him to stop, to put his fingers in him, try to prepare him a bit, but decided fuck that - he told Brant to push in. He did, with a strangled sort of groan, till his thighs were pushed up flush to Nash's and Nash held on tight to the sheets all the while, feeling Brant's cock push up inside him, open him up and stretch him out and make him pull tight around him, squeeze so fucking hard around him that it made Brant swear and Nash's own cock stiffen just a fraction more. And fuck, it didn't even occur to him till he'd already told Brant to move and he'd gripped Nash's hips and started to fuck him in little short, sharp thrusts that he hadn't had him wear a condom. He'd never done it without protection before that but there he was, there they were, Brant's bare cock pushing deep into Nash's arse, and fuck, _fuck_ , he couldn't get enough of it. 

"Harder," he told him, pushing back to meet Brant's thrusts. "Honestly, is that the best you can do?" So Brant swore under his breath and fucked him harder, skin slapping skin, and Nash muffled a groan against the pillows. He told him exactly what to do, faster, harder, got him to pull out right to the tip then push back in deep, again and again. He got him to pull out the whole way and just fuck him with the head of his cock for a minute, pushing into him then pulling out, teasing him, making his muscles fucking trembles with it, and Brant's too. He told Brant to touch him and then didn't specify how and Jesus, Brant's hands moved over him, his back, his shoulders, fingers on the nape of his neck, over his hips and thighs and then God, Brant wrapped one hand around Nash's cock, fingers still faintly slick with lube, and stroked. Nash came not even two minutes later, seizing up tight around the length of Brant's cock inside him, and Brant was maybe two minutes after that, maybe less, thrusting hard and fucking gasping. Brant came in him, _in him_ , with a throb of his cock that Nash could feel and fuck, it was nothing he'd ever really wanted but he wasn't exactly wishing it away. 

Brant pulled out after, slowly, his breath heavy, and flopped onto his back on the mattress. Nash went down, too, his pulse still quick. Brant looked at him, wincing again. 

"First time?" Nash asked. 

"Was it that bad?"

Nash clucked his tongue, fighting down the urge to tell him yes. "You're not actually bad when you do as you're told," he said, and Brant muttered something about backhanded compliments that made Nash smirk and tell him he was pleased they'd found something he was good at, at least. 

And in the morning, when Nash's alarm went off like it was heralding the fucking apocalypse, Brant rubbed his eyes and looked at him. Brant turned onto his side. Brant ran one hand over Nash's abdomen underneath the sheets, looking scared to death under a façade of indifference that wouldn't've fooled Nash for a second even if he'd had his eyes put out. 

The thing was, they only time they messed about was at night, after dark, around midnight, but there they were at 7am, light pouring in through the blinds he kept meaning to get fixed, daytime. Maybe it shouldn't have but it felt different. Maybe he should've stopped it before it began because of that, but he didn't; he let Brant shift over awkwardly on top of him, parted his thighs and let Brant settle between them, propped up on his forearms. He ran his hands down Brant's bare back, following the lean lines of muscle to the curve of his arse. He squeezed, slowly and deliberately. The look on Brant's face, caught somewhere between turned on and disconcerted, was absolutely worth it. 

"We're going to be late for work," Nash said. 

"Sod work," Brant replied, straightforwardly. 

Nash raised his brows, trailing his fingertips just lightly over the crack of Brant's arse. Brant almost jumped a mile. Nash looked up at him, amused; Brant glared. 

"You probably shouldn't say _sod work_ to your DI," Nash pointed out. 

"I didn't think you were my DI right now, Sir," Brant said, shuffling to give him a mocking salute. 

"I'm always your DI, Brant," he replied. 

"So what about this other shite?" Brant said. "You always that, too?"

Nash considered that for a minute, which would probably have been easier if he hadn't had almost all of Brant's full weight on him, and Brant's hips tilting faintly against his. 

"Yes," he said, in the end. "I'm always that, too." And Brant seemed satisfied with that. He kissed him, so he must've been. 

He kissed him for the first time since that first drunken night, prickly and awkward, and Nash should probably have stopped it but he absolutely didn't. He slipped one hand to the back of Brant's neck instead and pulled him in. He wrapped one leg over the back of Brant's and after that, Brant still looking wholly bloody bewildered, they fucked face to face in Nash's bed in the damned morning sun. They were late to work. They were the only ones that noticed. And even then, it wasn't like Brant was fixed, or even that he was all that much closer to it, because he wasn't. Even now, it's not like he's fixed. 

Brant's more or less the same as he ever was, and Nash doesn't think he's going to change that, possibly because he's not actually trying. And he's pissed off because he's done it again, roughed up a suspect, managed to beat the idiot half to death, even though he's got to know what's going to happen. They're going to try to haul him in again and the only saving grace can be that Nash was there, and a couple of the others, and the guy maybe did provoke him, if you look at it all in a certain light. But Brant's knuckles are bruised and torn and Nash spent twenty minutes cleaning them with TCP while Brant pissed and whinged about how it wasn't fair until Nash put his handcuffs on the table.

"If you're going to keep talking, I'm going to use these," he said, testily, because there's barely a day goes by when Brant doesn't fuck him right off. He doesn't want him to be quiet, or calm, but sometimes he'd just like him to be quieter and calmer. Sometimes, he'd really like him to stop beating people with his hands because he's going to get himself thrown off the force one day and probably into the nearest nick. 

"Yeah, why don't you?" Brant said, like that was some kind of a challenge, so when Brant undressed upstairs in the bedroom, Nash cuffed him to the bed. 

Now, Nash presses his hand over Brant's mouth to shut him up, though he can still hear him trying to talk behind his palm. He gives Brant a look like grim fucking death and he swears, and Nash knows he swore because he knows the timbre of his voice and the petulant tone of it like the back of his hand, probably better than the back of his hand because it's not like he spends a lot of time staring at his hands and he _does_ spend a lot of time listening to Brant talk. He can't exactly get away from that. 

He presses his hand over Brant's mouth and he leans down over him. He knows Brant still hasn't reconciled himself with any of this and when they go to bed it's always against his supposedly better judgement, not that Brant really has better judgement. It still makes him uncomfortable sometimes, and sometimes Nash is so pissed off with his behaviour that he'll tell him he's glad he's not out because he's fucking ashamed of him and sometimes he actually means it. Brant hasn't worked out that if it's okay for other people to sleep with men then it's fine for him, too. He tells Brant that sometimes, after he's come, while he's on his knees on the living room floor, when they're in bed and Brant's still going soft inside him. More than the insults, more than any slap across the face, more than making him kneel naked on the floor, it's that that gets to Brant. He can see it in him. 

He presses his hand over Brant's mouth and he teases the tip of his cock with the tip of his tongue. Brant always tries to tell him he hates it when he does that, despite how what his body says is complete the opposite. When he sucks him, Brant groans against his palm and bucks his hips and Nash runs his other hand between Brant's legs, skims his balls and walks his fingers down his perineum. Brant would let him fuck him if he asked, he thinks, and he can imagine the look on his face, and he can imagine his reaction after, but he's not going to ask. He thinks Brant will, at some point.

He sucks Brant's cock and Brant groans against his palm and he pulls at the cuffs and honestly, Nash is still irate enough that he doesn't care that Brant's going to bruise his wrists. 

Afterwards, they'll have a drink and maybe talk about a case and it won't be quite so much like Brant's only there to punish himself in relative safety, not realising Nash isn't what's safe at all. And maybe Nash will be able to pretend that Brant's the only one that does this to punish himself, like fucking his closeted DS is normal behaviour. Frankly, it's a miracle no one's noticed they're practically living together. It's a miracle Brant hasn't. 

He sucks Brant's cock and all he can think, nine months on now, is at least Brant's not on his knees in a filthy fucking alley behind a bar. So maybe none of this is right, and neither one of them's fixed or cured or even showing slight improvement, and they drink too much and they smoke too much and they'll probably be dead by fifty and this will be why, but at least there's that. Maybe neither of them's exactly happy, but at least there's that. 

And maybe neither of them's happy, but he thinks maybe they're not _not_.


End file.
